They are images and descriptions of the center of terror. And they are really unbearable. Even during October 7, the day when The Hamas terrorist group attacked 20 towns in southern Israel, violence directed especially against women could be perceived.. On social media we saw photos of women who had been taken against their will to the Gaza Strip, some of them barely dressed, with twisted limbs, wounded and bleeding.
This was followed by reports of rape and deliberate genital mutilation. And the terrorists often carried out the acts in front of children. A group of Israeli experts set out to collect evidence of these crimes, videos and witness statements.
Representatives of this group presented their work at a press conference at the American Jewish Committee in Berlin. Among them was Mirit Ben Mayor: “I am used to looking for and seeing evidence of criminal offenses,” says the former prosecutor and current chief inspector of the Israeli police. But despite her experience, she is also shocked: “Investigating these atrocities is different. “It is something we have never seen in Israel.”
On October 7, Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people in Israel in a carefully planned surprise attack from the Gaza Strip. Hundreds were injured or taken hostage. YesMore than 130 people are believed to remain captive in the Gaza Strip. Shortly after the day of barbaric terror, Cochav Elkayam Levy founded the “Civil Commission on the Crimes Committed by Hamas on October 7 against Women and Children.”
“Destroying the future”
According to the lawyer, this committeewhich claims to be independent of the government, sand proposes to document what happened, with detailed evidence about the planning of attacks against women and children, as well as against women’s bodies. They also see these attacks as an attempt to destroy the future. Elkayam Levy affirms that these crimes are undoubtedly “crimes against humanity.” Sexual violence was deliberately used as a weapon.
Police Mirit Ben Mayor considers another aspect of the atrocities important: for some of the Israelis of settlements located along the border with the Gaza Strip, The Palestinians there were “good friends” who worked for them, whom they gave rides to in their cars, and for whom they also organized medical care. The terror of October 7 had probably also been prepared by those people who used to cross the border: the Hamas terrorists “knew exactly what their job was, which houses they had to enter.”
horror scenes
At the press conference in Berlin, the women also show short excerpts from interviews. A survivor can be seen and heard describing the rape of a woman by several Hamas terrorists. The latter had killed the woman with a shot to the head while she was still in the act, and then they had cut off her breasts.
Or the assistant of the Israeli rescue service Zaka, who reports having found corpses of women cruelly mutilated in their private parts. Or the alleged terrorist who, under interrogation by an (unrecognizable) Israeli, admits that they had been ordered to rape women before the attack.
Meanwhile, heThe American media also cited transcripts of interrogations. According to them, the terrorists had previously learned to order their female victims in Hebrew to take off their pants.
Hamas has denied that its fighters committed sexual violence against women.
Criticism of the UN
The commission regrets the llong silence from UN officials and agencies, especially the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, about the October 7 massacres and selective hate crimes against women and children. He says that, finally, the UN unions spoke out and asked official representatives if the usual tests used in investigations after an alleged rape were carried out on the remains of these women, the battered or burned bodies.
Elkayam Levi and her campaign colleagues miss the recognition of actions and empathy. They claim that UN agencies received evidence from the beginning and did not react. UN Women also remained silent about the crimes for a long time. And the latest statements by UN officials are, in their opinion, “too little, too late.” Like this statement from UN Women Germany, from November 29: “We strongly support people affected by Hamas violence, especially women and girls. “We regret not having communicated this more clearly immediately.”
“We are not alone”
The lawyer is glad that large women’s organizations and feminists speak out little by little and believe in the testimonies of the survivors and the video recordings, in many cases, difficult to bear. After her meeting with the American jurist Catharine Alice MacKinnon (77), one of the most important feminists of her generation in the United States, Elkayam Levi assured that the jurist believed the testimonies and was shaken: “We are not alone. Now there are organizations around the world that are by our side,” she said.
For now, activists do not want to comment on how gender-specific crimes will be legally treated. That is not the priority; The first thing they want is to get all the evidence possible. A special court in Israel or international investigations are possible, although Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. So far, according to lawyer Miki Roitman, some 1,500 witness statements have been collected. In addition, there are a large number of videos with the atrocities committed.
Images that can never be forgotten, that can break people. According to activists, the country and Israeli society face various challenges as a result of the trauma. Attorney Roitman, social activist and advisor on women’s rights issues, thinks about witnesses and survivors. There are women who have suffered and survived atrocities and have now attempted suicide. Roitman also gave the example of an eight-year-old boy who witnessed the abuse and murder of his mother, and now has to live with it. The October 7 massacre could traumatize Israeli society for generations.
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